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no love for pink floyd, huh

The Top Ten Highest-Grossing Concert Tours Of All Time, Ranked

Jared Russo
Jared Russo
The Top Ten Highest-Grossing Concert Tours Of All Time, Ranked
Elton John could visit over 300 cities worldwide for his final goodbye tour, and yet still not be number one. I wonder who out-grossed him...
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The always excellent Twitter account StatsPanda tweeted out a fascinating chart with data from Pollstar about the highest grossing music tours of all time.

This doesn't account for inflation, so take that into consideration, but the sheer amount of buzz Taylor Swift has generated with her ongoing Eras Tour has to cement her at the top of the all-time money-making list for concert tours. People even thought she turbocharged the economy by visiting so many cities.

What's interesting is that older artists are on this list, but only for recent tours. There's no Michael Jackson or Prince at the height of their powers in the '80s or '90s, and we suspect it has to do with the price of tickets skyrocketing in the Ticket Master monopoly era.


Click to enlarge image

highest grossing concert tours


  1. Taylor Swift — "Eras Tour" (2023-2024)

  2. Elton John — "Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour" (2018-2023)

  3. Ed Sheeran — "Divide Tour" (2017-2019)

  4. U2 — "360° Tour" (2009-2011)

  5. Coldplay — "Music of the Spheres World Tour" (2022-2024)

  6. Harry Styles — "Love on Tour" (2021-2023)

  7. Guns N' Roses — "Not in This Lifetime Tour" (2016-2019)

  8. The Rolling Stones — "A Bigger Bang Tour" (2005-2007)

  9. The Rolling Stones — "No Filter Tour" (2017-2021)

  10. Coldplay — "A Head Full of Dreams Tour" (2016-2017)


[Image: YouTube]

Comments

  1. Bob Lawrence 8 months ago

    I had a front row ticket to Led Zepplin in 1979 in Minneapolis. The ticket was $13.00. Guessing that same ticket today would be in the thousands. Even more on the secondary market. No idea if this means anything, but there is a difference today than in the past.

  2. C F 8 months ago

    I should think that a more informative list could be made from numbers of tickets sold/attendance.

    The comments about using the inflation rate to adjust the monetary gross values is misleading as the ticket prices themselves have far outstripped inflation so using money as a metric for success or demand or popularity (because, ultimately, that's what everyone perceives this to be...a popularity comparison) isn't going to be accurate.

    Sellouts and how quickly the shows sold out compared to the number of shows for the tour overall would also be interesting to see.

  3. Chris Miller 8 months ago

    Everyone calm down a bit. The chart says “highest grossing” music tours of all time. No act had ever grossed 1.4 Billion dollars until Taylor Swift came along.

    You can feel free to make your own chart “adjusted for inflation” … which would be very interesting, but it’s hypothetical. Economists and Accountants can’t ever completely agree on the ideal approximations and subjective strategies that can accurately predict the way a market will behave.

    I don’t ever listen to Taylor Swift on purpose, but many have. She’s “grossed” more money than any tour in history. Just because I don’t really like her music doesn’t make the graph and associated dollar figures from the top 10 acts any less true.

    I can agree that music was better in the days of Elvis, Led Zeppelin, The Moody Blues, Jimi Hendrix, etc. That’s subjective. The dollar figures are not according to pollstar.com.

  4. Denis Cefko 8 months ago

    There is inflation calculator all over internet where you simply input amount of $ and year when is earned and you get how much is that worth today. For example 2005-2007 rolling stones tour was $558mil in todays $$ that would be over $873mil and that's not even 20 years ago. It would be interesting to see the actual list including inflation.

  5. Gary Brown 8 months ago

    Sure first off ticket prices are through the roof. If you had a band like Led Zeppelin doing the same tour they’d make more money as would Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles. It’s relative

  6. john stock 8 months ago

    STUPIDEST COMPARISON EVER!! Who is the idiot that comes up with these, "Comparisons", anyway? No way can you "compare" ticket sales today compared to the 70's or 80's. The Moody Blues were the first to sell out Madison Square Garden for two shows in history. So they don't "qualify" as the "Highest Grossing" of their time? You guys are a a FARCE!

  7. Andy DiMartino 8 months ago

    Where's Garth?

  8. Freddie 8 months ago

    If this survey comes in 20 years, Taylor Swift's tour willl probably be at number 10 or not at all. Try putting the $$ in terms of 1950 dollars. Elvis, The Beatles, etc might be in the top 10.

  9. Gary R 8 months ago

    Where is Metallica?

  10. Stephen Maynard 8 months ago

    Where's Waldo?

  11. Scott McLure 8 months ago

    These numbers don't mean anything without allowing for inflation and the time value of money. There are quite a few tours from prior to 2009 that would be on here.

    1. David Hale 8 months ago

      Absolutely correct. It would have been fairly simple to adjust for inflation but they didn't. This is just lazy.

  12. Ron Kays 8 months ago

    Where the hell is KISS!

    1. Gary R 8 months ago

      Hell yeah...the KISS Army would like to know!

  13. Susan Smallwood 8 months ago

    Where’s Bruce?

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